Summary:Â Let’s skip the good guy – bad guy blather about Ferguson. What does it reveal about America? About us? Much of use to those who rule America, and to those who would change it. The next post discusses what it means to everybody else. First of two posts today. {Y}ou didn’t come here to …
Summary:Â When the hysteria began following the revelations about NSA surveillance, I predicted that we’d have an enjoyable hissy fit — then nothing would change (details here). And 14 months later little has changed (perhaps nothing). Now the events in Ferguson MO have sparked a new cycle of outrage over the militarization of police. My …
Events in Ferguson show why we read the news: for entertainment Read More »
Summary: Events in Ferguson display some of the problems plaguing the Republic — our unresolved racial conflicts, sclerotic governing institutions, and most importantly our weakness as citizens. Decades of propaganda have erased from our minds our history of successful collective action, and replaced it with a mostly false belief in markets and individuals. It’s left …
Summary: 4GW is the dominant form of warfare in our time, allowing materially weaker peoples to defeat stronger opponents. Such victories are not free; they require a group to become morally strong: cohesive, disciplined, behaving so as to gather support from others. Mere violence accomplishes nothing, as African-Americans will learn again in Ferguson MO. . …
The protesters at Ferguson might have won, but choose to lose Read More »
Summary: Journalists have dissected the events in Ferguson, and now turn to the important question of police militarization during the past 20 years. We see the standard analysis: pictures of their equipment, pictures of SWAT in action, excessive focus on the details, and faux outrage over the story they ignored for so long. Here we …
Why America has militarized its police and crushes protests Read More »
